Offices Held

Biography

Although Leonard Yeo came of a gentle family long settled in north Devon, he was born at Tavistock. His apprenticeship to the London mercer John Broke was perhaps arranged by his uncle Richard Lybbe, helped by another kinsman Hugh Yeo. Admitted to the Mercers’ Company in 1533, Yeo soon married his former master’s widow, from whom he had already acquired much of her husband’s stock and property. As executrix she entrusted him with the administration of Broke’s possessions and made him guardian of his stepchildren, who however did not take to the situation. Until Broke’s heir came of age Yeo occupied his house called the Unicorn on Cheapside. In 1542 he bought land at Halstock in Devon and by 1553 he was the lessee of the castle ditch at Totnes from Sir Richard Edgecombe and of other property in the town from the corporation.3

Yeo’s association with Edgecombe probably conduced to his return for Totnes, where in 1555 his fellow-Member was Edgecombe’s son Peter, although he could also claim kinship with James Bassett, one of the knights of the shire. The borough appears to have raised the question of his municipal status, for three days after the Parliament of 1555 was dissolved the common council of London agreed to give him a certificate of his freedom for presentation at Totnes ‘provided the said Yeo shall be quietly permitted ... to enjoy the liberties of the town by reason of his said freedom here’. This evidently settled the matter; Yeo was to be reelected to the next two Parliaments and in the autumn of 1558 he began his first mayoralty. In the Parliament of that year Bassett was again one of the knights for Devon, and Bernard Smith, whose niece Yeo’s son George was to marry in 1561, was the other Member for Totnes. All that is known about Yeo’s part in the House is that in 1555 he did not join the opposition headed by Sir Anthony Kingston to one of the government’s bills.4

Yeo later settled at Exeter, where he died on 30 May 1586, his goods being valued for probate at £1,090.5